


Home is Where the Heart Is

by cordeliadelayne



Category: Primeval
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, Kissing, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:35:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27897658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordeliadelayne/pseuds/cordeliadelayne
Summary: Cutter has ideas about the Forest of Dean. Stephen isn't so sure.
Relationships: Nick Cutter/Stephen Hart
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	Home is Where the Heart Is

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seraphina_snape](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraphina_snape/gifts).



> Written as a Christmas present for the lovely seraphina_snape who gave the prompt “where Helen wasn't the one who discovered the first anomaly.” Also, Happy Birthday!

“I'm telling you, Stephen, there's something off about the Forest of Dean.”

Stephen didn't look up from the student essay he was attempting to grade. He had a red pen in his hand and Cutter could tell he was having trouble rewording the scathing remark Cutter had left; the Dean's email from earlier that day that he didn't want to see any more students leaving Cutter's office in tears was why Stephen usually marked them first.

“ _Stephen?_ ”

“Hmm, take a look then, if you think it's worth it.”

Stephen still didn't look up and Cutter waited a beat, and then two, before picking up his bag and jacket and the keys to the jeep.

“All right then, I will.”

* * * * *

Cutter had first come to the Forest of Dean three years previously chasing a rumour of mysterious lights from an old school friend. This friend, Mark, had always been a bit of a wanderer, backpacking around the UK, never staying in one place for more than a week, claiming that he was writing a book but never putting pen to paper.

He'd kept coming back to the Forest of Dean though, as if drawn there by some mysterious force and eventually he'd contacted Cutter and said he thought it was worth checking out.

Cutter had been sceptical but after agreeing to meet him there he had felt it too. It was as if the animals in the forest could sense a predator lurking nearby, everything was on edge including him and Mark. He'd thought it at least worthy of investigation but Stephen hadn't seen the point and he'd come to accept that until he worked on the problem for himself, Stephen was never going to be able to listen.

And now here he was, wandering aimlessly in the forest with no idea what he was doing or where he was going.

But no, he did know what he was doing, subconsciously at least. He found his steps leading him as ever to the same spot, a clearing with fallen trees and scratch marks against tree trunks. He hitched his bag onto his shoulder and frowned as he spotted something on the floor.

“What is...” he murmured to himself, leaning down and pausing with surprise at the side of a dead chicken with its neck broken. He pressed a finger curiously at the chicken's feathers and then looked around for tracks that indicated what animal was responsible.

The tracks didn't make any sense to Cutter, who usually relied on Stephen for things like this, but he followed them carefully anyway, eventually finding himself in a car park of a supermarket with more signs of damage along a metal fence. There were more dead chickens here too, half chewed and spat out. Cutter searched for any signs of faeces that might help identify the predator – he'd spent an illuminating six weeks learning about this with Stephen at the Natural History Museum - but there was none nearby.

“How?” Cutter asked himself, turning around on the spot. “How?”

He soon became aware of a trembling in the ground beneath his feet. He stood still, senses alert, trying to gauge where the threat was coming from.

Cutter threw himself to the ground just in time as a car come barrelling towards him, smashing over and over in the opposite direction to where he now lay. He turned quickly, saw that to his shock and amazement a bloody great dinosaur was careening towards him, but had no time to think of anything except “shit, shit, shit” and that he had to move.

He leapt to his feet and started to run. He tried to make it to the supermarket but the Gorgonopsid, because that was what, impossibly, was chasing him, cut him off and he veered back into the forest. His heart was hammering against his chest and he sent up a silent prayer to a deity he didn't believe in that Stephen had insisted on getting him a gym membership for Christmas last year as he easily leapt over a fallen tree log, ducked under some branches and then found himself running straight towards a sparkling light. He was going too fast to veer away without damaging himself or getting trampled so the only thing he could do was run right through it and hope for the best.

**7 Years Later**

Cutter's office had slowly become Stephen's office and had improved somewhat in seven years. Now it was bigger with a little kitchen area and more space that could be filled with piles of books and the odd dinosaur bone. The mess was the same as ever, the piles of student papers still threatening to, and occasionally actually, falling into the bin. He could never find a pen when he needed it, but the bottle of whisky was always right there when he came in in the morning, and when he made tea in the afternoon, and after every meeting with the Dean.

Cutter stood in the doorway taking it all in. The mess, the smell, the warmth, it was all so very Stephen that Cutter's heart ached and he had to hold out a hand to the door to keep himself upright. It had taken him a very long time to find his way back home and there hadn't been a single day that he hadn't missed Stephen or not regretted that their last words to each other had been so insignificant, so dismissive of the other's concerns. He wasn't sure when their relationship had turned from friendship, to love, to simply going through the motions.

He'd decided on seeking the other man at work rather than at the home they'd shared for all too brief a time because he'd wanted a neutral ground, but now he realised that no space they'd shared, separate or together, could ever be called neutral.

Cutter stepped inside the room and found Stephen's schedule scribbled on a pad he'd stuck to the wall with Blu Tack. According to that his lecture on the Permian would be ending in about ten minutes. Ironic that that had been the first place Cutter had found himself.

He also saw what he hadn't expected, coordinates on a map laid out on the desk that looked eerily familiar, though the writing definitely wasn't Stephen's. So what did that mean? Had Stephen discovered the anomalies while he'd been travelling, had he gone through one looking for him?

He shook his head. There would be plenty of time to find out exactly what Stephen knew later. For now he took out the camera from his bag, grateful that he'd had it with him when he'd left and accessed Stephen's laptop – the man had never changed a password in his life. Then he sat back and waited.

* * * * *

When Stephen hurried into the room, calling something about essay deadlines behind his shoulder as he did so, Cutter straightened up in his chair expecting some sort of reaction. Instead Stephen dumped his pile of books on the floor and headed straight for the kettle, not giving his desk even the most cursory of glances.

Cutter smiled. This was the Stephen he had missed. Not the one who kept things obsessively clean for the sake of appearances like the first flat he'd owned on his own, but the one who left a mess because he was so comfortable in his surroundings.

“Stephen.”

Stephen froze and dropped the mug he'd been holding so it shattered against the floor. Cutter slowly stood up so that Stephen could see him better.

“N-Nick? You're alive.”

Cutter nodded, suddenly unsure about what to do. He'd been planning this moment for so long and now, seeing Stephen in front of him he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do. What if he no longer cared about him? What if he'd got married and had a family and a life?

All Cutter's fears were swept away when Stephen hurried forward and pulled Cutter into a bone crushing hug.

* * * * *

Stephen insisted on driving Cutter home, ignoring the rolled eyes of the Department secretary who found herself having to readjust his schedule for the third time that week. Cutter tried to talk but Stephen was insistent that they say nothing until they were home. Cutter tried not to put too much hope into Stephen's casual use of the word home, but it was harder than he'd imagined.

The house didn't seem all that different, the same familiar furniture, the same familiar pictures on the walls.

Cutter stopped in the hallway and pressed a finger to their first photo together, taken at a dig in Montana.

“I missed you,” Cutter said. “So much.”

Stephen put his arms around Cutter's waist and pulled him closer. “God, I missed you too. What happened? Where were you? Why did you leave?”

“I didn't want to, I swear Stephen, it wasn't – I didn't leave you deliberately. I just got stuck.”

“Stuck? Stuck where?”

Cutter took a deep breath. “The Permian. To start with, anyway.”

Stephen took a step backward and looked closely at Cutter's face. “I'll put the kettle on,” he decided after a moment and Cutter followed him slowly into the kitchen.

* * * * *

As Cutter began to recite his life, the Gorgonopsid, the Forest of Dean, the anomalies, the realisation that time was no longer as fixed as they'd always believed it, Stephen listened in rapt attention. When he got to the part about the T-rex and the fall from a waterfall Stephen insisted on seeing the scar on his leg for himself. When Cutter got to the part about two years having passed and still he had no idea how to get home Stephen pulled him into another hug and didn't let him go.

“We don't have to do all this now,” he said, pressing a kiss to Cutter's hair.

Cutter realised he was shaking and tried to make himself calm down. “You believe me?”

“Of course I believe you. Why wouldn't I?”

“God, I love you.”

“I love you too,” Stephen said. “Always have. Always will. I never stopped looking for you. I spoke to your friend, the tracker, and he told me some of the things he'd seen. The police weren't interested but there's a student, Connor, he started after you left. He had some theories. We put some things together. We haven't seen the anomalies for ourselves but some of the things we did find – it all makes sense.”

“You – really?” Cutter asked, moving a little away. “You tried to find me?”

Stephen looked incredulous and a little angry. “Did you really think that I wouldn't? It's only been the last six months I've started properly back at the university. I took sabbatical after sabbatical hoping to find some trace of you. I've been carrying a ring in a box in my pocket for seven years, Nick. Of course I looked for you.”

Cutter brushed at his eyes and then fought back a yawn. This was the longest conversation he'd had with someone other than himself in a very long time, he'd forgotten how tiring other people could be.

“Come on,” Stephen said, wrinkling his nose. “You need a shower. And then bed. And then we'll start all over again in the morning.”

“I know when some of them are going to open,” Cutter said, pulling out a notebook from his pocket. “You should have a look. I think it's only going to get worse.”

“All right, I'll have a read while you sleep,” Stephen said, taking the notebook. He pressed a soft kiss to Cutter's forehead. “Welcome home, Nick.”

Cutter let himself sag then, the bone weariness, the constant alertness, the injuries and scars and the hunger, started to catch up with him and he had to lean on Stephen to even make it up the stairs. But he was home and Stephen's faith in him had never wavered and whatever was going to happen next, they were going to face it together.

Cutter couldn't have possibly asked for more. Though he hadn't overlooked Stephen's mention of a ring and a box, so maybe there was a little more he could ask for. In the morning.


End file.
